Expect a Different Look to the Ninth Season of the European Poker Tour

Friday, May 4th, 2012 by Ryan

The European Poker Tour is definitely one of the most talked about tours on the live poker tournament circuit today, but with Season Eight of the series coming to an end quickly with the Grand Final in Monte Carlo, the tour has announced their plans for the upcoming season. In a bit of a shocker, there are quite a few serious changes that have people intrigued. For starters, you’ll find that the total number of events that will be held in Season Nine will be quite a few less, as this year featured 13 events, but that number will be dropping down to eight in the upcoming season. They will keep many of the high profile events, but they will be dropping some of the other events.

The main events that will remain include the tournaments in Spain, Barcelona, Italy, San Remo, Berlin, Germany, London, and the United Kingdom. That means that the few that will be dropped will be the event in Denmark, Tallinn, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Loutraki, and Copenhagen. What’s incredibly interesting about some of the locations that they are eliminating is that they were big parts of the tournament series. For starters, Estonia was actually the first stop of the schedule over the past two seasons, and Denmark had been on the schedule since the European Poker Tour actually began.

It is more than just the events that will be changing as well, as they have decided to make it so that each different stop on the tournament schedule will feature a big time poker festival for players. This means that there will be quite a few different events before the Main Events kick off, and each will run over a longer span of time, typically around ten days for most stops. There will also be more high dollar tournaments including the €10,000 Championship Series, which actually begins with a different style of tournament, as it will be a Heads Up event in Barcelona. On top of that though, also expect to see some tournaments outside of just the Texas Hold’em format, including things like Eight Game events and Pot Limit Omaha tournaments as well. Don’t forget about the High Roller tournaments either though, as these will be offered on the European Poker Tour as well still.

The starting plan for the upcoming season will start in Barcelona, and it will begin in August. The tournament series will run from the 15th to the 25th (the ten day span mentioned above). The plan for the Main Event is that it will begin right in the middle of the series on the 19th of the month. After this they will head to San Remo, Italy from the 3rd of October to the 11th, and it should draw a massive showing because this falls just after the World Series of Poker Europe comes to a close in Cannes, France.

Overall, the new look European Poker Tour seems to be one that the players who make it to the events should really enjoy. It comes down to more poker and an all-around enjoyable time as well. We’ll keep you updated as more news is released!